Comic Con Interview : Martin Campbell

At this past weekend’s Comic Con in San Diego, Moviehole had the chance to chat to director Martin Campbell (”The Mask of Zorro”, ”Goldeneye”, ”Casino Royale”) about bringing Hal Jordan’s story to the big screen.

Would you say that, since there’s so much going on in “The Green Lantern”, that the movie is going to be a tough sell?

It’s not a tough one to explain. I think it’s all very, very clear. I think the story that we are telling, which is the Hal Jordon story, is quite concise, actually. I think that the fact that he’s inducted and he becomes a Green Lantern and the way in which the ring works through will power is easy to understand – the stronger your will power, the stronger your construct…..construct being whatever your imagination cares to create. The actual story is very simple.

I know there are many complex characters and all the characters from the origin story go on to the dark side in later comics and things, but I think it’s very straight forward.

I imagine Ryan Reynolds wasn’t the only one to audition for the role?

We did test a few actors. We tested a few of them twice. We went to England and tested a few people. This is a serious thing – this is not just one film but, if it’s successful, we’ll do a sequel, so we hope this is something that goes on for a long period of time – so we had to choose vigilantly. Everyone was good but Ryan was exceptional!

A lot of the characters are CGI characters. Have you cast actors to supply the voices for those characters yet?

We’ve got some ideas we can’t disclose at the moment, only because of post production. We’re a year out from releasing still. I’m sure there’ll be three or four voices tried for each character to see how they fit. You’re never quite sure until you cut the film of precisely how the characters turned out.

There’s a lot of talk that this might build up to a “Justice League” movie – does that affect your choices at all?

No, not at all. I think we stand absolutely on our own and we stand as our own superhero, our own story. And a terrific story it is.

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